U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,114--Moeller, et al shows a mini-cartridge in which magnetic tape stores computer data. Small tape drives for writing and reading data stored on 1/4-inch tape in these mini-cartridges are commonly used in personal computer systems. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3 526,371--Blackie et al; 3,924,823--Cohen, et al; 4,647,994--Irwin, et al; and 4,984,111--Rudi are examples of drives utilizing this type of data cartridge.
Quarter-Inch Cartridge Drive Standards Inc. 311 East Carillo Street, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93101 publishes development standards adopted by several manufacturers for this type of disk drive. These standards describe an 80/120 megabyte, 28-track, 14,700 bpi (579 bmm) MFM-encoded flexible disk controller compatible recording format using a 1/4-inch mini-data cartridge. Published standards include "FLEXIBLE-DISK-CONTROLLER-COMPATIBLE RECORDING FORMAT FOR INFORMATION INTERCHANGE", QIC-80 Revision D, 6 Dec. 1989 and "COMMON COMMAND SET INTERFACE SPECIFICATION FOR FLEXIBLE DISK CONTROLLER BASED MINICARTRIDGE TAPE DRIVES", QIC-117, Revision B, 6 Dec. 1989. These published standards are incorporated herein by reference. Companies which make tape drives for reading and writing tapes to these standards include:
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Similar tape drives are available which write tapes in a format which is not compatible with the QIC standards. One example of such a drive is that manufactured by Irwin Magnetics, Inc. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,646,175; 4,586,094--Chambors, et al and 4,498,129 describe the tape drive and format of tapes written on these drives.